mining in africa: managing the impacts

gold processing britannica.com

the largest gold find in history is in the witwatersrand of south africa. discovered in 1886, it produced 25 percent of the world's gold by 1899 and 40 percent by 1985. the discovery of the witwatersrand deposit coincided with the discovery of the cyanidation process, which made it possible to recover gold values that had escaped both gravity concentration and amalgamation.